Abyei receives first batch of IDPs returning from north Sudan
By Ngor Arol Garang
November 22, 2010 (ABYEI) — Hundreds of Abyei population on Wednesday covered a distance of one hour walk to receive a first group of 1200 internally displaced persons returning home from the northern states.
Many of the returnees visibly looked tired after spending three days on trucks driving through corridors of the highly contested north- South borders spoke of a home land.
Most of Abyei citizens fled their ancestral homes in the nineties when the militias recruited by President Omer Al-Bashir government implemented scorched-earth policy to pacify the rebellious area.
Some displaced returned after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended the over two decade’s long civil war between the former rebel Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and National Congress Party (NCP) government. However, military confrontation the northern and southern troops in May 2008 dissuaded many from returning home.
Awien Acuil Mading, an elderly woman told Sudan Tribune at the reception point in Abyei town that she is happy for being among the first batch to return home safe.
“I am happy that we have finally come back home, home is home no matter how bad it looks to other people. My heart has always been here even if we have nothing to eat,” said Awien.
Acuil Akol Miyen, secretary for finance in administration of Abyei, told Sudan Tribune that these returnees are the first group of IDPs returning voluntarily from the northern Sudan.
“We have a budget for 8080 people approved by the government of south Sudan to help us to facilitate the transportation of those who have expressed willingness to be returned home. So, we have received 1200 people today. This is the first and other groups will come,” said Acuil.
Talks between the 2005peace parties have repeatedly failed to reach a consensus over the future of the oil producing region. Two of the sticking points causing standoff over the future of the region was a demand raised by the NCP during last month talks held in the Ethiopian capital to include the cattle herders from the Missiriya tribe in composition of Abyei Referendum Commission and but also to allow them to participate in the referenda.
En accordance with the CPA, Abyei citizens have to decide whether they want to remain part of southern Kordofan state or joining the southern Sudan. However Abyei protocol did not determined who is a citizen of Abyei.
But a group of international experts said in their findings that Abyei belong to the nine chiefdom of the Dinka Ngok and admitted the grazing rights for the cattle herders. The Arbitration court in the Huage confirmed the conclusions of the experts but the Misseriya refuse such perspective.
Officials from the dominant, NCP, have announced last month that referendum for Abyei will not go ahead unless an agreement is reached.
The delay in Abyei referendum is raising fears that indefinite delay may become a cause for future conflict.
Dhieu Mathok Diing Wol, a senior member of the SPLM told Sudan Tribune on Thursday from the regional capital of Juba that the NCP considers Abyei as nothing but wealth, hence clanged on the region for economic reason.
The referendum is the end stage of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that began in 2005, ending the bloody 21-year civil war between the government of Sudan in the north and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the south.
(ST)